Prof. Deepak Kapur, Distinguished Professor in the Department of Computer Science at the University of New Mexico and Honorary Professor in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering at IIT Delhi passed away on April 11 2026 in Albuquerque NM, USA at the age of 75. He is survived by his wife Roli Varma and their daughter Ila.
Deepak was a leading researcher in the area of Automated Reasoning, particularly using symbolic computation and term rewriting techniques, and was a well respected figure in Formal Methods, known for his encyclopaedic knowledge of mathematics. His work on Groebner bases found applications in geometry theorem proving and computer vision. His software tool Rewrite Rule Laboratory (RRL) was the first theorem prover based on term rewriting and the Knuth-Bendix completion procedure, and was widely used in hardware verification, specification analysis and other applications.
He was a winner of the Herbrand Award in 2009 “in recognition of his seminal contributions to several areas of automated deduction including inductive theorem proving, geometry theorem proving, term rewriting, unification theory, integration and combination of decision procedures, lemma and loop invariant generation, as well as his work in computer algebra, which helped to bridge the gap between the two areas.”
Born in Amritar, Deepak studied Electrical Engineering at IIT Kanpur (B. Tech. 1966-71, M. Tech. 1971-73) before going on to complete his Ph.D. at MIT working with the legendary Barbara Liskov on his dissertation “Towards a Theory of Abstract Data Types” (1980). He then worked at General Electric Corporation’s R&D Laboratory at Schenectady, NY till 1987. He was also an adjunct professor at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in that period. In 1988 he moved to SUNY Albany as a professor. In 1998, he became the Chair of the Computer Science department at the University of New Mexico, serving till 2006; after stepping down, he became Distinguished Professor in that department.
Prof. Kapur was Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Automated Reasoning from 1993-2007, and served on the editorial boards of several other journals in symbolic computing, logic and algebraic methods. He also was a member of the board of Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics, and at the United Nations University in Macao, CSRI of the Sandia National Laboratories and Los Alamos Computer Science Institute.
Reflecting on his association with the department, Prof. Sanjiva Prasad recalled: “Deepak was a regular visitor to the CSE Department, almost annually in the December-January period. He was ever enthusiastic about sharing his knowledge and insights. On almost every visit he would give a series of seminar talks, often running into hours or until his lungs got tired. A small question could lead to a comprehensive lecture on whatever mathematical domain it concerned, conveying insights both theoretical and computational. He was always accessible, and always ready to chat. Sachin Maheshwari, SAK and I spent a lot of time with him, and in recent years so have Nikhil, Vaishnavi, SVS, Priyanka, Madhukar and Sorav, as well as some of our grad students.
Deepak also had a fierce social commitment to progressive causes, and was unafraid to voice his opposition to autocratic politics across the world. I got to know him around 1986-87 when he was on my friend CK Mohan’s dissertation committee, and our initial conversations were more around politics than computer science. Or IIT Kanpur. Deepak was a friend — from their graduate days together at MIT — of Mandayam Srivas (Kumar Madhukar’s adviser, and at that time the professor for whom I was a TA and who was later my colleague at ORA). He had an easy, friendly attitude with everyone, and in all his years in the US, retained his “thhet” Punjabi accent.”